Investigating Prospective English Language Teachers’ Metaphorical Perceptions of English Literature

This study investigates how the prospective English teachers at a state university utilize individual “English Literature” metaphors through a metaphor prompt “English literature is a/an…….because…….” to express their perceptions about the roles of English literature in their lives. A metaphor elicitation questionnaire was applied to a purposeful sample of university students, who had attended the course “English Language and Literature.” The researchers aimed to analyze how the participants used metaphors to express their perceptions about English literature. A qualitative data collection design was used in the study. Using content analysis, the metaphorical expressions were investigated and categorized. Conceptual themes were identified. Forty-six prospective English teachers developed 37 metaphors and the responses were collected under 5 different categories. The findings revealed that prospective English teachers have a variety of views about English literature. These perceptions, whether positive or negative, will influence their future teaching lives; therefore, it is important that this topic is investigated to help students understand literature and encourage them to put literature in its right place in their lives. The results may help prospective English teachers increase their awareness of English literature by means of metaphors in order to integrate it into their own teaching methodologies. Implications were given for English language teaching programs and for further studies Cite this article as: Canlı, B., & Canlı, Z. (2025). Investigating prospective English language teachers’ metaphorical perceptions of English literature. HAYEF: Journal of Education, 22, 0084, doi:10.5152/hayef.2026.25084.